Can the Olympics succeed without overseas fans? | Inside Story

the games must go on but the tokyo olympics and paralympics won't have any foreign fans so how will this affect the athletes and what about the businesses and japanese public banking on a slice of olympic glory this is inside story hello and welcome to the program i'm muhammad zhum the olympics and paralympics thrive on one thing international sports fans but after a year of delay they won't be in tokyo when the games finally begin only japanese fans will be allowed into the stadiums organizers say it's to prevent the spread of covet 19 and ensure the public safety it's a major blow to the athletes as well as the businesses and sponsors who've spent billions of dollars to be part of the greatest show on earth david stokes reports for the first time in the game's history there will be no overseas fans in an effort to reduce the spread of coronavirus we have to take decisions which may you know need to sacrifice respecting this priority of the safety of the olympic games this has largely been driven by the japanese public recent polls have shown a growing skepticism about holding the games and in particular letting foreigners in during a global health crisis we thought we should make a decision early because of accommodation and flight reservations there were also requests domestically for making a decision as soon as possible set to cost 25 billion dollars the tokyo games are already the most expensive ever and the absence of foreign fans will make a further dent in the budget tokyo's hotels restaurants and other businesses will miss out on valuable trade and around a million tickets already sold abroad now need refunding british fan justin reed had tickets and flights booked but he's looking on the bright side if you sat on your sofa watching it you know you can you can record it in your own time you can watch what you want to watch you can flick between the two you can go to as many events as you want so i will uh the olympics may have lost me in person but i definitely will still be watching 4.5 million tickets have been bought domestically but while japanese fans are expected to be allowed in the venues will almost certainly operate at a reduced capacity athletes like nutella muhammad continue to train all around the world and organisers still have the massive challenge of bringing in more than fifteen thousand of them for the olympics and then the paralympics the next big test will be the olympic torch relay which is coming up on thursday starting in fukushima 10 000 runners will criss-cross japan over the next four months to reach the opening ceremony on july 23rd local crowds just like their foreign counterparts are being asked to stay away david stokes al jazeera all right let's bring in our guests in tokyo dan orlowicz sports writer at japan times in manchester lutala mohammed as british taekwondo olympic medalist and in shizuoka sejiro takeshita dean of the school of management at the university of shizuoka welcome to the program lutalu let me start with you what kind of impact is this having on you and what kind of an impact you think this is going to have on the rest of the olympic and paralympic athletes i mean let's just be open and honest it's going to be a very different olympics from what we're used to as a now a veteran of the last two games london and rio one of the best things about it was that um that support that overwhelming home support even in rio the amount of brits that came out to support their athletes to make them feel at home it was absolutely incredible so it's going to be very strange going into an olympic games without that feeling however you have to accept it's going to be a strange games but it's also been a very strange year so with that being said we just have to get on with it and be grateful that the games is still happening and focus on what we can do and that's our best performance possible and that's at least what i'm going to be doing dan how much of a financial blow is this going to be for japan and how much of more of a burden is this going to be putting on japanese taxpayers this will be a significant financial blow to the country there have been some estimates saying that the loss of overseas fans to the games could cost as much as two billion dollars that's on top of all the money that's been spent preparing for the games uh you have the tourist industry the tourism industry that was really looking for a significant windfall from these games you have sponsors who are expecting to reach out to all the fans who are attending and all of that money all the tickets have to be refunded uh all of the hotels all of the uh tourism-related businesses restaurants they're all going to take a severe hit and the taxpayers are likely going to have to shoulder some of that burden sagiro do we know how much of a hit corporate sponsors are going to be taking as a result of this and are they eventually going to see a return on their investment well many of them are starting to back off uh currently uh several polls suggest that 70 to 80 percent of japanese public is against or not willing to hold the olympics uh this year um postponing it is uh mainly their wish 40 of corporations feel that way in other words 60 is still trying to have a goal but obviously with the consensus public not being there obviously they're going to back off that said the direct implication i don't think is as big as people claim because 70 of revenue comes from broadcasting right and 20 comes from sponsorship which not all of it is going to erode away so it's not as bad as i think you know many people you know want to frame it but i think um there would be a lot more negative legacy that will come in others we were trying to build a new legacy particularly as far as inbound tourism is concerned as the other gentleman has depicted right now and this is going to be a very big blow for the japanese because we were so much looking forward to this olympics okay all olympics are special people might say but this really was seen as an ignition point to rejuvenate japan as it did in 1964 in previous tokyo olympics uh away from our lost two decades of economic stagnancy so this is um going to have a lot of blow not only in the economic terms that you can see in the numbers but also on the psychological side as well lutalo as i understand it um olympic and paralympic athletes are not going to have to be vaccinated in order to enter japan but they will have to get coveted tests throughout the games they will have to get a kova test before departing to japan once they arrived there what have you been told about what it's going to be like i've been told the same as you that there won't be any mandatory vaccine that's the case right now anyway and you know um what you just said about all the koga testing and the bubble i mean after the year we've just had i'm very very confident that the ioc and the japanese organizing committee are gonna do everything they can to make sure that this is the safest olympics ever i mean that is the rationale behind not having any foreign fans in the first place so um i'm confident that that side of things is gonna be okay just it's just a little bit of a shame that the atmosphere and the i guess the buzz and feeling of having all those tourists coming in to um japan is going to be gone because in truth it does make a big difference not just for the japanese fans but for the athletes as well dan the organizers say that barring international fans from attending the games from going to japan that that's going to make the games much safer and more secure for the participants for the fans that are there for the athletes but considering what sejiro has said which is you know this polling of late which suggests that up to 80 percent of the japanese public may be against holding these games all together um is what the organizers is saying right now is that allaying some of the fears that people have absolutely i think that if you look at the polls uh the biggest reservations that the japanese public has against the games or in regards to the games i should say is holding them as planned uh with fans from overseas and i think that uh getting rid of that component uh not allowing overseas fans will to some extent uh relax some concerns that people have uh it should be noted that of course uh foreign residents of japan will be allowed to attend the games it isn't just a ban on foreign fans so some countries especially those with significant uh populations in the country or in japan i should say uh they will be represented and i'm sure that they will have plenty of supporters in the stands uh when the time comes sajiro i want to look a little closer at some of the things you were discussing in your previous answer and and and kind of focus a little bit more on on the economic collateral damage of all of this i mean for example how is this going to affect businesses in japan that are counting on tourism well tourism was one of the start player of the japanese economy this was one area where all the estimates were exceeded um particularly with the inbound boost that we were seeing particularly throughout 2014 to 2018 just before corona and this would have a very positive knock-on effect to the japanese economy because it's not only the tourism but it's also the post tourism many people would have interest in japan and japanese products and will buy these things after they go home uh there will be an awareness of returning back again um there's a lot of what one would call um a lot of infringement effect that would really cause a lot of good um synergism in the economy as a whole so tourism was becoming a very big pillar of the japanese economic growth and as we saw in 2019 rugby world cup it was a great success and the japanese tend to be a very good host of these things so obviously 2020 tokyo olympics was seen as one of the very good i should say starting point uh to to get into the new dimension of growth of having tourism as the major pillar of the japanese economy so this from that point of view this situation is a very big blow to the industry and related industry as a whole dan i just saw you nodding along quite a bit to some of what sediro was saying did you want to jump in yes i covered the rugby world cup for the japan times and it was an incredible experience to see how warmly the country received the the tens of thousands of fans who came for those six weeks and uh looking back at that time you really did think that uh this was the the setup for the olympics and you could really start to feel the optimism uh among the japanese public especially among those who had been rather cynical towards the olympics so having experienced that and transitioning from that in 2019 to the the covetera and to where we've arrived at uh now is incredibly disappointing that was a huge accomplishment for japan and the olympics were supposed to be even bigger and better so from that perspective it's a huge loss tala you mentioned a few moments ago just how different the atmosphere is going to be uh at these olympics and the paralympic games and i want to ask you as an olympic medalist i mean what is it going to mean to you to be in that arena with so fewer number of fans with an atmosphere that's much different than previous olympics i mean what's that going to be like for you i mean we're just going to have to for me i'm just going to stay focused on my job and that's securing a gold medal for myself and obviously 14 gb it's gonna be different you um alluded to there japanese fans are notoriously uh polite and quiet compared to western fans so that's gonna be a massive culture shock to the athletes who haven't competed in japan before um they're gonna see it's gonna be very very different without the influx of foreign plans to kind of make that noise that we normally would expect especially in the combat sports however it is what it is um i'm pretty sure that uh i say it when i get that gold medal and i'm on top of that podium it's still gonna feel pretty good whether the uh the the crowd is making lots of noise or not and just focus on that it'll definitely still be a good feeling for you i'm pretty sure it will be yeah say jiro let me ask you what are some of the political consequences that could happen as a result of all this i mean there must be politicians in japan that are really fearful about about their political futures right now correct absolutely that's one of the reasons why um they have come to this decision i mean if you can imagine resurgence of you know the corporate vice particularly corona variant type uh that we're seeing right now if we see resurgence of that because of the tokyo olympics you can understand what kind of disastrous political implications that would cause uh so obviously um i think the politicians have counted that in and and also the fact that the actual income itself is relatively secured again uh by the e sponsorship and also the broadcasting rights so um i think that that's one of the reasons why they come to this conclusion um that said the japanese tend to be extremely conservative um we tend to have the highest level of risk avoidance and this is another negative thing uh because right now many of the japanese amongst oecd nations are most skeptical towards um taking uh measures to fight off this this virus the vaccines uh in fact 30 percent of japanese are against having vaccines because they're doubtful about the the side effect and the secondary effect that they're they're getting all the reports about so you can see what kind of conservatism that's that is swirling in the air right now and under that kind of circumstance i think it would be very difficult for the politicians to push this um to have the foreign you know um as um spectators coming in because they may be able to control the players and the related people but certainly not the spectators so i think this was also very very much um a political decision as you point out lutallah what has the last year been like for athletes especially when it comes to the the disruption of training regimens due to covet 19 restrictions i mean how difficult has that been to cope with it was extremely difficult at first um before going into the first lockdown when we didn't know if the olympics was going to be postponed or not we were hearing so many rumors um somewhat speculation so it had felt like you were training in limbo which is uh very different for athletes professional athletes we are very goal focused so we know what we're working toward every time and we work towards that with hard work and dedication every day when you know the goal pulse feels like it's going to get be moved um it was difficult to train and also of course not having access to the normal facilities that we would happen to train at home and make do and you're feeling like you're training for the biggest sporting event of our lives um what we've worked for our entire careers and you know which we're training at home with no equipment so it was very difficult at first very grateful now that we're in a better situation where elite athletes most places are able to train in elite facilities however we're seeing a third wave going across europe currently i mean i believe italy uh france um i think uh canada uh that's obviously not in europe but all across the world we're seeing uh third waves potentially happening and going into lockdown once again and the olympics only being four months away it is a concern so i'm in a very fortunate position at gb taekwondo where i can still train but that's certainly not the case across the board so i think um having equal access to training facilities is going to be a massive massive concern across the board and one other thing is the qualification this is the one thing that nobody's really mentioning most of the qualification tournaments last year were postponed or cancelled those qualification tournaments still have not happened with the majority of the sport so here we are four months out from the biggest sporting event of all time and most athletes still haven't had the opportunity to qualify some athletes still aren't even able to train so this is just the tip of the iceberg there's so many more problems to solve qualification training facilities uh it needs to happen very very soon otherwise we're gonna be in even more of a pickle than we are now lutallo are you in any way concerned that the games could be postponed again or canceled altogether absolutely i am when it's happened once before i mean let's face it we we never expected it to happen uh you know to have a postpone this is so unusual so it is definitely a concern across the board with all athletes i've spoken to and the the major worry is the messages that we received from the ioc and the japanese organizing committee is that there will not be another postponement that if the olympics cannot happen at the schedule date they have now it will be cancelled which would be a nightmare for all athletes who have been training you know a lifetime for this moment and or all people across around the world who were looking for this olympic games as sort of a beacon of hope uh that we're coming out of this this pandemic this crisis this global crisis so i a cancelled olympics would have so many implications just like the other gentleman said not just economically but psychologically but not just for the athletes but for people all across the world it would feel like a disaster if the olympics got cancelled but it's a reality that that could actually happen and it's bad for me to say that dan what does the local demand for tickets look like at this stage and how much will japanese fans be able to make up for the lack of so many foreign fans that's a very open question right now uh before the pandemic uh roughly four and a half million tickets had been sold in japan uh in november and december they held a refund period about 800 000 tickets were refunded so that leaves roughly six 3.6 million still sold uh the availability of those tickets has not been decided yet uh there are local reports that venues could be uh capped at 50 of available capacity to allow for physical distancing and that would quite severely reduce the number of tickets sold and i've even read reports that they could have a second lottery a re-lottery if you will to determine who among the ticket holders would get to keep their tickets uh there's going to be a lot of complications of course some events such as gold medal events have been uh oversold while the preliminaries and such have been undersold so we don't know what's above 50 what's below 50 percent or if 50 will be the limit sajiro dan was just talking about some of the complications i suppose one of the more complicated things right now is how to arrange refunds for all those foreign travelers who've bought tickets who've booked hotels i mean how is that going to be done how long might it take and who ultimately bears responsibility for this well as for the service industry itself i mean we're seeing quite a lot of bankruptcies to say the least so i think that would basically exacerbate the situation and also the language barrier that persists and uh quite a lot of things um in japan uh for example the the the payment methodology uh contractual methodology they're quite different from that of the west uh where what we call the galapagos situation where the island galapagos was able to sustain its livelihood of you know many species because they were so apart from you know the mainland and japan has that phenomena in many aspects of the economy actually so i think that would uh unfortunately bring further complications to various you know um people uh who were uh trying to reach japan which is another very unfortunate thing because that would basically cause a slowdown of regression of people coming to japan this this country is still so under cultivated as far as tourism is concerned i think uh and it has such huge potential i think and uh therefore i think um you know the the administrative complications or you know these failures that you accommodate may certainly hurt various issues or regression of people coming back to japan in the future lutalo we've spoken about so many things that can induce so much anxiety for athletes and yet i hear you speaking about all this your outlook is so positive and and i'm just curious how difficult it has been for you to maintain that focus to look forward to hopefully winning that gold medal and to maintain that positivity well for me when times are bad i tend to just try and focus on what i can control ultimately the olympic postponement uh because pandemic everything that's happened over this last year it it hasn't been in any of our control so what i have been able to control is my my fitness my hard work my dedication to my training and that gives me positivity and although we have some problems and some issues to get over right now the messaging we're getting right now but is that the olympics is happening so that's almost like a beacon of hope for me if the olympics does happen and i'm able to go i'll be extremely grateful that is happening under any circumstances if for whatever reason it doesn't happen and uh it either gets postponed again or as we said before most likely it gets cancelled then it is what it is we are in the midst of a global pandemic and as tough as it is as an elite athlete to admit this this pandemic has shown us that there are more important things in the world than sport so if sport has to take a back step for a while then so be it however until then i'm remaining positive and i'm still visualizing that gold medal being hung around my neck sometime in july of 2021. well that's a good thing to visualize at a time like this we have run out of time so we're going to have to leave the conversation there thank you so much to all of our guests dan orlowicz lutala mohammed and sejiro takashita and thank you two for watching you can see this and all of our previous programs again by visiting our website aljazeera.com and for further discussion go to our facebook page that's facebook.com forward slash aj inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at aj inside story for me muhammad jim shuman the whole team here bye for now you

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 13,400

Keywords: al jazeera, al jazeera english, aljazeera, aljazeera english, aljazeera live, aljazeera news, covid, covid-19, fans, games, japan, japan news, olympics, sport, sports, tokyo, tokyo games

Id: gF120_QRxDY

Length: 25min 15sec (1515 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021